Bella tops the charts of most popular pet names

Bella landed in the No. 1 spot for dogs and cats and the No. 3 spot in the birds and exotics category in a recent Veterinary Pet Insurance (VPI) release listing the most common pet names.

VPI found the top 10 most common pet names of 2012 by sorting its database of more than 485,000 insured pets.Following Bella in the dog category were Bailey, Max and Lucy. In the cat category, Max, Chloe and Oliver landed behind Bella and Charlie and Buddy topped the birds and exotics category.

These names weren’t just popular among pets—each of the top five dog and cat names were also among Babycenter.com’s 100 most popular baby names of 2012.

“The popularity of people names doubling as pet names is a testament to the bigger trend of pet owners viewing their pets as members of the family,” says Curtis Steinhoff, director of corporate communications at VPI. “It’s now just as common for a pet to be named Oliver or Chloe as it is for a child.”

Here's the full list:

Dogs

1. Bella

2. Bailey

3. Max

4. Lucy

5. Molly

6. Buddy

7. Daisy

8. Maggie

9. Charlie

10. Sophie

Cats

1. Bella

2. Max

3. Chloe

4. Oliver

5. Lucy

6. Smokey

7. Shadow

8. Tiger

9. Charlie

10. Tigger

Birds and exotics

1. Charlie

2. Buddy

3. Bella

4. Max

5. Angel

6. Baby

7. Coco

8. Rocky

9. Bandit

10. Sunny